“This Bat Wasn’t His Creation” 

Warning: There are spoilers ahead for The Walking Dead: Dead City season 2, episode 1.

Jeffrey Dean Morgan addresses the real meaning of Negan’s final scene with Lucille in The Walking Dead: Dead City season 2, episode 1. Morgan’s iconic character previously wielded a bat wrapped in barbed wire, referred to as Lucille, which was named after his late wife. In the Dead City season 2 premiere, The Croat (Željko Ivanek) gives Negan a new bat named Lucille, but Negan is seen dropping it to the floor in the final moments of the episode.

While speaking with Deadline, Morgan explains that Negan drops the bat because it is not the real Lucille, and he doesn’t like being reminded of who he used to be. He shares that a previous version of the scene that was cut showed Negan not just dropping the bat, but throwing it across the cell. Morgan also reveals that even though Negan has to use the bat, he never refers to it as Lucille. Check out his comments below:

Yeah. It got cut out, and I don’t know why, but I threw the bat across the cell because he’s been working for years to get away from that Negan, to not be the head cracking guy. Lucille and the leather coat, all that stuff reminds him of that Negan. He’s been working hard to be someone else or get away from it least, that part of who he had to become during the apocalypse. Now these people are blackmailing him into becoming that guy again, and he’s fighting it. At the end of the first season, you see him trying to be someone else and move away from that part of his life. Here he is being asked and blackmailed to be the guy that he doesn’t want to be, which is a cool thing to have to play.

No, I don’t think he is [impressed]. I think he had a special relationship with the first bat for a lot of reasons having to do with his ex-wife Lucille. This bat wasn’t his creation, and it was a gift from The Croat [Ivanek], Lucille 2.0. But I don’t think he ever refers to her as Lucille. I mean, there’s a certain point that he has to use her, I guess, but it’s not the same as it was.

What This Means For The Walking Dead: Dead City Season 2

Negan’s Progress Will Not Be Undone By Lucille 2.0

Morgan’s comments emphasize how, despite being betrayed by Maggie (Lauren Cohan) during Dead City season 1’s ending and now being given a new Lucille, Negan does not want to regress into his previously villainous self. He will do what he must to survive the ruthlessness of post-apocalyptic New York City, but he does not like being blackmailed into becoming the Negan who once led the Saviors, and he doesn’t like even being reminded of it. The character’s work to improve himself is not being thrown away in the spinoff.

Another aspect of Negan’s disgust with the new Lucille is that it has no personal meaning to him. Being given a new bat wrapped in barbed wire does not make it equivalent to the same object that defined so much of Negan’s Walking Dead story, both in terms of how it reminded him of his wife, and because of the role it played in shaping his identity in a post-apocalyptic world. Never calling the new bat Lucille speaks volumes about how it pales in comparison to the real Lucille.

Dead City Season 2 Is Making Smart Choices

I’m glad that Dead City is not undermining Negan’s development and how far he has come from the days of bashing in skulls with the original Lucille. As Morgan indicates in his comments, it is more compelling to play a character forced into becoming that version of himself again while being reluctant to do so. That inner conflict will continue to drive the story as Negan fights to survive and to maintain the humanity he has reclaimed in The Walking Dead: Dead City season 2.

Source: Deadline